Heartlessness
by felines
Summary: Before he can stop himself, he begins to beg for Clove. Maybe he does have a heart, in the end. It doesn't matter. Those moments of being human do nothing to make up for seventeen years of heartlessness. - —Cato/Clove


I ship Cato/Clove, though not as much as some other people do, and in my headcanon, Clato is dark and so imperfect that it can hardly be called love. After all, with two people like Cato and Clove, I find it hard to believe they'll put their differences aside and work on something like love. Of course, this is only my own opinion, and even if you don't agree with it, I do hope you'll read on!

I also hope nobody is offended by the mentions of God I keep adding in here. Whatever Cato thinks in here does not necessarily reflect my personal views, and I only use God as a literary device in here. God is someone who would have control over your life, like fate. I would use fate, but it's such a cliché idea.

Nonetheless, I still hope you'll read and review to give me feedback!

Disclaimer: Nope, last time I checked, I still don't own the trilogy.

* * *

Pain has an element of blank;  
It cannot recollect  
When it began, or if there were  
A day when it was not.  
–Emily Dickinson, "Pain has an element of blank"

**...**

If Cato believes in God, he'd think that this is punishment for the weakness he displayed at the Feast. If he believes in God, he'd say that this is God's retribution for failing to remain unwavering in his pursuit for the glory he deserved. After all, any misfortune must not have come from Cato's personal imperfections; any troubles must be his god's doing, if God is even real.

**.**

Why did Cato have to yell for Clove? Just because she yelled for him, doesn't mean he had to chase after the shards of her voice and sprint to her. Why did he have to seem weak – in front of the whole of Panem – as though he meant something important to such a weak tribute, to a tribute who couldn't even finish off a person she had under knife-point. What a weakling, and to associate himself with such a fragile doll was to expose himself to humiliation.

Moreover, he had to whisper kind words to her before she died, because to not do so would be to sacrifice any chance of some Capitol citizen sponsoring him. What a sap he sounded like – "I'll remember you. I'll miss you. Of course I will win. For you." What stupid words. He would have won, Clove or no Clove. Those words he whispered, they meant nothing more than the smiles he gave to the Capitol residents, and those smiles meant even less to him than the Girl on Fire and her stupid, not-dead Lover Boy. He despised the Capitol and all the decadence it stood for, and yet he smiled for those eccentric-looking freaks. It was the same with Clove.

He later wishes that the comforting words he had said to soothe the dying Clove meant something, for that would mean he has a heart, but unfortunately, he's never had a heart, and he never will. Now is not a time to start anyway.

**.**

The embarrassing slip of the tongue was a sign of love, a love for Clove which he had none of. (At least, he'd like to think that it was just a slip of the tongue, that he has no feelings for Clove.) Besides, he reassures himself numerous times after that embarrassing moment when he decided to be weak, that none of it mattered because all they'd ever known, the two of them, Cato and Clove, was that one day they could be killing each other. They'd always assumed that if they were put together in the Hunger Games, they would end up killing each other, because nobody else deserved to make it into the final two.

That showdown never happened, and never will, and the thought of it makes Cato feel the rustles of sorrow.

**.**

Nothing matters. He is going to die soon; it is only a matter of when, of when the Gamemakers decide to slaughter him. He is going to die for his pride, for his reluctance to adopt, like those District 12 imbeciles, that star-crossed lovers act. It was because of his pride that he, even when Clove agreed to the idea reluctantly, rejected any form of an alliance out of love. Back then, in the comfort of the apartment on the second floor, he thought he, Cato, would win from pure strength. Oh, how silly that idea seems now, what with him panting for water and following an acrid riverbed toward the lake and the Cornucopia where certain death awaits.

He knows, even now, that Clove always had a special interest for him, ever since she discovered when they were both six that he liked to fashion knives out of heavy lead and used them everyday to kill game. He always knew that Clove, tough she may be (but not tough enough to win; _never _tough enough to win), had feelings for him that transcended the level of animosity and even indifference. Cato could have easily pulled off a star-crossed lovers act as well. Right now, it could have been him and Clove, hunting for a lone girl on fire, not the other way around. Not the worn and beaten Cato hiding from the District 12 imbeciles.

The imbeciles who are going to kill him, and end his life like it never meant anything. Which, perhaps, it didn't.

**.**

The end is coming when he sees the dark locks of the mutt, flowing and glowing under the sun. She is the first one – no, thing; they are not real, he tells himself, just another psychological weapon unleashed by the Capitol – he sees.

Then he sees the rest.

Then he realizes that death is imminent.

Then, he knows, as an irrefutable fact, that he is so weak. He's had his doubts; now he casts them away. If God is out there, He must be punishing Cato for seventeen years of heartlessness.

**.**

Twelve shoots at him, as though he had been following her; as though he's after _her_. Why would he follow her and Lover Boy, two coal miners with their stupid and inane love act? They are not worthy of him, even at the verge of his death.

**.**

The horrified look in Lover Boy's eyes as he catches sight of the mutts nearly makes Cato laugh.

Not for a lack of trying, though. When Cato tries to laugh, he chokes on his own rising bile and spit and goodness knows what else. He makes this awful strangled noise instead, and he is weak.

No matter where he runs, he has no escape. It is two against one; 12 against 2; love against nothing.

**.**

X marks the spot, the spot where death will knock, where he will fall ignominiously from the pedestal and into the snarling heap of mutts.

As Lover Boy wipes his filthy blood all over Cato's hand, Cato wonders if this is God's way of foreshadowing. God's way of saying that soon he will be covered all over with blood, and that maybe he should have gotten a heart before coming to the Games, like Lover Boy obviously did. And now Lover Boy is going to live with his fire and Cato is going to die without a heart.

**.**

Cato is whimpering. Begging. The pain, it is too great. He cannot handle it anymore. He begs for a release, for death. The look in the Girl on Fire's eyes is a mixture of horror and pity, and Cato would care, except that he is out of air to move his muscles, and spit to hydrate his throat, and life to live.

Before he can stop himself, and before he is even thinking about what he's doing, he begins to beg for Clove, underneath his breath, when his voice begins to fail him. Nobody hears him – not the lovers, not the cameras, not the world. Only he hears himself.

Maybe, in the end, he does have a heart.

Whatever. It is not enough. Those few moments of being human do nothing to make up for seventeen years of heartlessness.

The arrow whizzes through the air, and BOOM, it reaches its target, and–

**.**

Ultimately, Cato has no God to blame for his failings, as much as he would like to try. Cato, after all, doesn't believe in God. Not because Cato doesn't care for the idea – well, that too – but because if God is real then Cato couldn't possibly become the most glorious. And if Cato had no chance of becoming the most venerated, then his entire life, and all his time spent on this wretched earth, meant nothing.

And that thought, that terrible, terrible thought – that thought is no thought a dying man should be thinking.

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